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This is the sentence:

> 私は韓国人 **では** ありません。
>
> Watashi wa kangokujin **de wa** arimasen.
>
> I'm not Korean.

I was expecting something like:

> 私は韓国人ありません。
>
> Watashi wa kangokujin arimasen.

Why is the では necessary? And what does it mean?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-29T05:39:47.913
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2020-10-03T06:37:53.937
29736
question
grammar particles
Why is では (dewa) necessary in the following sentence? And what does it mean?


ではありません should be treated as a single word (for now, at least). It is the
negative form of です, so it means 'is not', 'am not', 'are not' etc.

You may have already seen the contracted form of the plain speech version
じゃない. In this form じゃ is a contraction of では, and ない is the plain speech form
of the polite ありません.

On its own ありません is the negative form of あります which is the polite form of ある.
This means 'to have', 'to exist' etc. So your sentence 私は韓国人ありません is
ungrammatical and doesn't make much sense. 私は韓国人 **が** ありません would mean "I
don't have a Korean person" which sounds pretty odd to me.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-04-29T08:43:24.633
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2018-04-29T13:35:05.007
2018-04-29T13:35:05.007
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answer


It seems to be a double negative for emphasis as in Spanish. Hard to get used
to if your native language uses a single negative as in logic.


CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-10-03T06:37:53.937
80939
2020-10-03T06:37:53.937
40486
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answer